Keeping Guard

Antiwar activists say that governors should be doing more

The state of Louisiana, a third of whose
National Guard troops are in Iraq, is activating 3,500 soldiers,
roughly half of the state’s forces, to clean up behind
Katrina, the hurricane that slammed New Orleans on Monday.

Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, also with
large Guard contingencies on overseas duty, have mobilized
guardsmen to deal with Katrina’s aftermath in those states.
Meanwhile, other Guard units from around the country, including
Illinois, have been placed on standby.

Katrina highlights the burden America’s
continuing presence in Iraq is placing on the Guard, which
typically has been used for domestic problems — from natural
disasters to civil unrest — and not for supporting prolonged
military operations.

Some governors, such as Montana’s, have
complained about the Guard’s prolonged deployment in Iraq.
But Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich — who has had no
reservations about speaking out on other national and international
matters — has been markedly silent.

Since March 2003, 12 members of the Illinois
National Guard have been killed while serving in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Approximately 1,400 of the state’s 9,000 National
Guardsmen are on duty in Iraq.

Anti-war activists say that governors, who
have some responsibility for the Guard in their states, need to
stand up and be counted.

In a telephone interview from “Camp
Casey,” an anti-war demonstration in Crawford, Texas, Charley
Richardson tells Illinois Times that the organization he helped co-found,
Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), has urged several state
governors to be more proactive in bringing National Guard troops
home from what he calls a “war based on lies.”

Richardson’s group questions the
legitimacy of the Iraq invasion and occupation, but it also says
that an overextended Guard will ultimately hurt the ability of states to respond to
emergencies such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

This spring, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a
Democrat, even went so far as to ask the Pentagon to release his
state’s Guard for what was expected to be a particularly
severe summer wildfire season.

Certainly Illinois is as prone to natural
disaster as Louisiana or Montana — and likely a more
desirable terrorist target than either.

But despite his part as commander in chief of
the Illinois Air and Army National Guards, Blagojevich has not
articulated a position on the Bush administration’s handling
of the war in Iraq or its impact on the state National Guard.

In October 2002, as a Democratic congressman
from a Chicago district, Blagojevich voted to give Bush the
authority to use force against Iraq — the critical vote that
led to the invasion and occupation.

Blagojevich may have been in lockstep with
the Bush administration on Iraq then, but since his election as
governor, Blagojevich has been more willing than willing to lock
horns with the administration on other hot-button issues.

He’s fought the Food and Drug
Administration on the prescription-drug issue, in favor of
importing lower-priced drugs from Canada. In response to rising gas
prices, he recently urged the president to release oil from the
federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And he’s led the charge
on the Base Realignment and Closure Commission-directed
military-base closings by filing a lawsuit against the U.S.
Department of Defense.

The BRAC cuts — which, among other
shifts, would strip Springfield’s 183rd Fighter Wing of its
F-16 jets — Blagojevich says, violate federal law by
disregarding his role as Illinois National Guard commander in
chief.

One reason that officials such as Blagojevich
have not taken a position on the war is simply because they
don’t have to — voters tend to blame Bush for the war,
not the bipartisan Congress that allowed it.

“For a lot of state and local politicians,
they’ve felt like the war was not something they had to pay any
attention to because they could write it off as a federal policy
issue,” says MFSO’s Richardson.

Of course, even if Blagojevich wanted to wade
into this issue, his power would be severely circumscribed.

According to Loyola University Chicago
political-science professor John Williams, even if the governor
wanted to call home the Guard, he would not have the legal
authority to do so — not if the troops have been federalized.

Title 10 of the U.S. Code states that a
governor may not withhold consent “with regard to active duty
outside the United States, its territories, and its possessions,
because of any objection to the location, purpose, type, or
schedule of such active duty” of the National Guard.

Legalities aside, groups such as
Richardson’s insist that governors must do more to advocate
for soldiers from their home states.

“State politicians have a duty to their
constituents,” Richardson says. “The fact that there
may not be something they can do directly doesn’t mean there
aren’t things they can do to advocate for the return of their
National Guard to try and change the minds of the policy-makers in
Washington, D.C.”